Sewing machine attachment



June 17, 1969 5, BONOMQ I 3,450,077

SEWING MACHINE ATTACHMELJT Filed Oct. 12, 1966 FIG. I.

INVENTOR Salvatore G. Bonomo BY 744 l ATTORNEY United States Patent US. Cl. 112-114 3 Claims ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE This disclosure describes an attachment for standard, commercial sewing machines which provides the machine with the added ability to readily sew dress hooks in place and to make eyes formed of thread for those hooks. The attachment comprises a portion which is attachable to the sewing machine and which carries a slidable operating member. Another horizontal portion is formed with an opening shaped to accept a dress hook and a bridge over said opening upon which the hook may be engaged. In addition, a horizontally slidable rod is connected to said operating members so that the rod can be manually moved into the center of said opening when the member is operated. With the rod in position in said opening, operation of the sewing machine will result in the formation of a thread loop with the rod maintaining the cloth fiat and the two sides of the eye well separated.

This invention relates to attachments for sewing machines, and, more particularly, to attachments for sewing machines to enable more automatic and rapid fastening of buttons, hooks, eyes, and other similar devices to sewable articles of all types.

Hooks and eyes, buttons and buttonholes, and similar devices have been used for centuries to close openings in clothing of all types, and in all kinds of devices made of leather, cloth, plastics, and the like. At one time, practically all this work was done by hand. However, as the cost of hand labor rose, it become important to device different ways of performing as many of the old hand tasks as possible. The invention of the sewing machine speeded up straight sewing; the subsequent improvements in sewing machines helped increase the amount of work one person could do well and made possible the mass production of cloth articles including clothing.

However, in spite of all of the improvements made in sewing machines and in spite of the special purpose sewing machines which have been developed, there are still many hand tasks performed in clothing and similar factories. In any installation where a variety of clothing is made, or of any other sewn articles for that matter, accessories are still often applied by hand. Among the accessories which are common to most sewn articles are the buttons, the buckles, the clasps, and the buttonholes, the eyes, or the loops which are needed on cloth articles having openings. Button machines are not new, nor are buttonhole makers. However, most button machines can handle only a limited number of different size buttons, and usually only those with holes which are located within prescribed ranges of separations. Special feet are sometimes provided for holding hooks or eyes for sewing operations, but, again, these devices are limited in their usefulness and are seldom worth using unless a very large number of similar articles are being prepared.

It is an object of this invention to provide a new and improved attachment for sewing machines.

It is another object of this invention to provide a new and improved attachment for sewing machines to improve the versatility and usefullness of the sewing machine.

It is a further object of this invention to provide a new and improved attachment for a sewing machine to provide a new and improved attachment for a sewing machine to provide a means for automatically and rapidly attaching hooks, eyes, buttons, and the like to cloth and similar articles and to a provide a means for quickly and easily forming loops made of thread.

Other objects and advantages will become more apparent as the following description proceeds, which description should be considered together with the accompanying drawings in which:

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of the attachment of this invention;

FIG. 2 is a plan view of a portion of the attachment of this invention;

FIG. 3 is a plan view of a portion of this invention with the loop-making device in position and showing how the device operates; and

FIG. 4 is a bottom view of a portion of this invention showing the loop-making device in its withdrawn position.

Referring nOW to the drawings in detail, the reference character 10 designates generally an attachment for a sewing machine, which attachment comprises a sloping portion 11, a generally horizontal top portion 12, and a generally horizontal bottom portion 13. The top portion 12 includes a pair of bolts 25 or the like for fastening the attachment of this invention to a standard button sewing machine such as those made by the Singer Company and desiganted as class 1'75 button machines. A slot 7 18 formed in the top portion 12 and generally centered laterally in the top portion 12 is parallel to the longitudinal axis of the attachment. The vertical portion of a loop-maker, to the top of which is attached a tubular knob 21, passes through the slot 18. A bowed spring washer 24 is interposed between the knob 21 and the top surface of the portion 12 to provide friction sufficient to maintain the knob 21 in position in the slot 18. The loopmaker comprises the vertical portion attached to the knob 21 and a lower horizontal portion 23 with intervening connecting portions 22.

Connected to the top horizontal portion 12 by the central sloping portion 11 is the lower horizontal portion 13 which has a slot 14 longitudinally formed in it. The slot 14 passes from the end of the lower portion 13 toward the central portion 11 and terminates in two semicircles 16 and 17. A bridge '15 is mounted on the lower portion 11 across the slot 14. On either side of the slot 14 the lower portion 13 is cut back to form a shelf 26. As better seen from the bottom view of FIG. 4, the under side of the lower portion 13 has a longitudinal slot formed therein to accommodate the loop-maker 23.

The bolts 25, or any other suitable fastening means, are used to mount the attachment of this invention to a button sewing machine. A button sewing machine is one in which the needle is laterally displaced with each vertical stroke to repeatedly sew across a prescribed area. In other words, the needle sews through two adjacent holes in a button. Similar action in home sewing machines is called zig-zag sewing. However, for rapid sewing of devices other than buttons of the range of sizes for the particular machine, the work must be performed by hand. With the attachment of this invention mounted on the button sewing machine, the knob 21 is moved to the right, as shown in FIG. 1. Then, hooks may he slipped into the slot 14 with the hook portion passing over the bridge 15 to hold it in place and with the eyes of the hook generally aligned with the semicircles 16 and 17. The sewing machine is operated; the needle of the sewing machine passes back and forth through the openings in the hook until the hook is sufiiciently well attached to the cloth to which it is being sewed. Then, the knob 21 may be moved to the left so that the end 23 of the loop-maker ejects the sewn hook and the material to which it is sewn. The next hook is placed in position, and the process is repeated. Similarly, metal eyes may also be sewn in place using the attachment of this invention. Since the small wire eyes normally used with hooks have no means for holding them in position on the attachment, the member 23, the loop-former, may be moved to the left, using the knob 21, to support the eye from underneath. Then, as the machine is operated, the eye has no tendency to move around. In addition, small buttons can be sewn using the attachment of this invention.

In many dress factories, small wire hooks are used together with thread loops at the end of openings such as those which are closed with sliding fasteners to hold the opening closed. In such plants, the loops must be formed by hand even when attachments are used to sew on the wire hooks. This hand sewing requires at least one additional employee and increases the costs of manufacturing the garments. The attachment of this invention not only will permit the machine sewing of the hooks onto the garments, but also, and immediately, will permit the formation of the loops. The hook to be sewn is inserted into the slot 14 as mentioned above, and the machine perates to fasten the hook to the cloth. Then, the knob 21 is moved to the right to eject the hook, and it is left in this position. This places the loop-former 23 in the central portion of the slot 14 as shown in FIG. 3. FIG. 4 shows that the bottom of the lower portion 13 has a groove formed in its surface to accommodate the loop-former 23. Thus, the bottom of the loop-former 23 is in the same plane as the bottom of the lower portion 13. This rests upon the cloth being sewn. When the loop-former 23 is in its left-hand position, it provides a retention means for the material being sewn so that the needle, shown in FIG. 3 at 31, may pass through the material and draw the thread 32 back with it without pulling the material being sewn up through the slot 14. Thus, as the needle 31 moves back and forth through the material being sewn, as shown in FIG. 3 in the full and in the dotted position, the loop-former 23 holds down the material being sewn. When the loop has been formed, the knob 21 is moved to the right to release the loop, and the material is withdrawn. The loops 33 formed in this manner and using this invention are formed rapidly and well by machine with a uniform spacing and with no puckering of the material. If the loop-former 23 is not moved to the left, the machine to which the attachment of this invention is mounted may be used to make small sewing tacks without removing the attachment. Once the attachment of this invention is mounted onto a button sewing machine, it may be left in place while the machine is used to perform many types of jobs. Thus, one attachment of the type described may release at least one employee normally doing hand sewing for other duties, while the button sewing machine performs her duties as well as the jobs previously performed by the machine.

The above specification has described a new and improved attachment for sewing machines, which attachment improves the versatility of the button sewing machines already in use. In addition, the attachment described above permits some jobs which have heretofore been performed by hand to be performed by machines, thus reducing the cost of many articles and operations. The device of this invention is simple and rugged in construction, easily installed, and substantially free from maintenance problems.

What is claimed is:

1. An attachment for a sewing machine, said attachment comprising an upper portion, a sloping portion and a lower portion, said upper and said lower portions being generally horizontal, means on said upper portion for mounting said attachment to a sewing machine, said lower portion having a longitudinal slot open at its end, said slot ending in semicircles to accommodate articles to be fastened to material to be sewn, a bridge mounted on said lower portion spanning said slot, a thread loopformer slidably adjacent said lower portion for selectively projecting into said slot during sewing operations to hold the material being sewn in position, and means for manually moving said projecting thread loop-former into and out of operative position in said slot.

2. The attachment defined in claim 1 further including friction means for holding said loop-former into the position in which it is manually placed.

3. The attachment defined in claim 2 wherein said slot further includes a setback on either side to define shelves on which items to be sewn in position are supported during sewing operations.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 884,629 4/ 1908 Wilkinson et al 112-105 1,032,017 7/1912 McComb 112-105 1,361,217 12/1920 Barron et al 112-105 1,681,948 8/1928 Morris 112-114 3,123,032 3/1964 Gehringer 112-107 3,151,585 10/1964 Koschoif et al. 112-107 2,788,756 4/1957 Cushing 112-114 PATRICK D. LAWSON, Primary Examiner.

G. V. LARKIN, Assistant Examiner. 

